Two-thirds of Americans think that we’ll be seeing drones dropping off things like clothes, books, pet food and more within half a decade. And 80 percent of consumers say retailers offering quick drone delivery will be more likely to get their business.

The full study, titled “Reinventing Retail: What Businesses Need to Know in 2015,” will be released tomorrow. For now, though, it’s worth noting that the non-scientific research, which surveyed 1,400 Americans, highlighted that consumers think companies like Amazon and Google are very close to realizing their ambitions to make deliveries by drone.

Notwithstanding Federal Aviation Administration restrictions on the commercial use of drones that currently prohibit such deliveries, 14 percent of those surveyed think drone deliveries will start within a year, while 22 percent feel it will happen by 2017. Another 30 percent think it will take up to five years before package-laden drones are buzzing our skies.

Above: Most people interested in package delivery by drone say they’re open to having books and clothing dropped from the sky.

Image Credit: Walker Sands Communications

The FAA proposed a set of guidelines last weekend that would limit non-recreational drones weighing less than 55 pounds to altitudes of 500 feet and speeds of 100 miles an hour. It’s not entirely clear how those rules, if implemented, would impact drone delivery.

Nevertheless, having Amazon’s name associated with package delivery by drone has done wonders for the public’s perception of the practice, even as regulations — and to an extent, technical limitations — have kept packages on the ground. “Drone-delivered packages may be an even bigger push toward a future where the majority of purchases are made online across multiple product categories,” Walker Sands wrote. “Four in five consumers say drone delivery to their doorsteps within an hour would make them more likely to purchase from a retailer.”

And, even as the public is opening up to the idea, people are also seemingly willing to open their wallets. “Consumers don’t just expect to receive online orders by drone,” Walker Sands asserted, “they are also willing to pay for it. Almost 80 percent of consumers are willing to pay for drone delivery if their order arrived within an hour, with nearly half…saying they would pay at least $5.”

Just 23 percent surveyed said they weren’t interested in drone delivery. That indicates, the report suggested, that “rapid delivery by air is fertile ground for retailers like Amazon that plan to push the limits of fast delivery.”

Of course, the public’s interest in drone delivery depends on what’s being dropped off. Three-quarters of people are interested in book delivery — hello, Amazon! — while 73 percent like the idea of having clothes appear from above. After that, interest drops off pretty quickly. Just 54 percent are interested in pet items, 45 percent in tools, 44 percent in sporting goods and household goods, and 32 percent in general consumer electronics. One wonders when we’ll see a drone deliver a drone.

]]>066% of Americans expect drones to deliver their books and clothes within 5 yearsAmazon may buy some RadioShack stores in latest quest to be more like Applehttp://venturebeat.com/2015/02/03/amazon-may-buy-some-radioshack-stores-in-latest-quest-to-be-more-like-apple/
http://venturebeat.com/2015/02/03/amazon-may-buy-some-radioshack-stores-in-latest-quest-to-be-more-like-apple/#commentsTue, 03 Feb 2015 10:43:04 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=1654460If such a deal comes to pass, it's likely driven by Amazon's desire to have a place where consumers can see and touch its growing array of electronics hardware, including the Fire Phone, Fire TV, and Kindle Fire.
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If such a deal comes to pass, it’s likely driven by Amazon’s desire to have a place where consumers can see and touch its growing array of electronics hardware, including the Fire Phone, Fire TV, and Kindle Fire.

In other words, it wants to embrace the strategy that allowed Apple to introduce a series of revolutionary gadgets over the past decade. Apple executives have long said that the seemingly counterintuitive strategy of building hundreds of retail stores created an intimate setting where consumers could experience new devices.

Microsoft also tried to adopt that strategy, opening a series of Microsoft stores, with mixed results. Now we’ll see if Amazon is next.

Should Amazon go down this road, it’s notable for a few reasons.

First, observers will love the delicious irony of the company that was supposed to demolish brick-and-mortar retailing now coming full circle to embrace that which it had set out to kill.

Second, and perhaps more important, it means that Amazon is doubling down on its hardware investments, rather than backing away after the Fire Phone debacle last year.

Finally, with investors finally starting to get a bit more critical of Amazon’s lack of profitability, taking on a costly retrofit of retail stores most closely associated with malls and hair metal bands and the 1980s will likely raise some eyebrows on Wall Street.

For all this speculation, it’s worth noting that we’ve been down this road with Amazon before, so such reports should be taken with more than a grain of salt. Last fall, the Wall Street Journal reported that Amazon would open its first brick-and-mortar retail store in New York City for the holidays. But it never happened.

]]>0Amazon may buy some RadioShack stores in latest quest to be more like AppleThis new WibiData software could help retailers sell far more stuff onlinehttp://venturebeat.com/2015/01/12/this-new-wibidata-software-could-help-retailers-sell-far-more-stuff-online/
http://venturebeat.com/2015/01/12/this-new-wibidata-software-could-help-retailers-sell-far-more-stuff-online/#commentsMon, 12 Jan 2015 13:00:48 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=1639772The new capability in WibiData's software for retailers stands out for giving people with a range of skills the power to take advantage of big data.
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WibiData, a San Francisco startup building tools atop the Hadoop open-source software for storing and processing large quantities of various types of data, wants to help retailers lay out their websites in the smartest possible way. So WibiData is going beyond personalization through machine learning; it will begin offering a way for retailers to quickly test out several machine learning models and then go with the ones that provide the best results.

The new feature, dubbed Experiments by Wibi, enhances the retail-specific software WibiData released last year. But the overall concept at the root of the new feature from the startup — which developers, data scientists, and even marketers can all use — could turn out to be the next big way to extract major value out of all the data that companies are stowing away.

“A large majority of our technology is directly applicable to other industries as well,” WibiData cofounder and chief executive Christophe Bisciglia told VentureBeat in an interview.

Sure, companies with distributions of Hadoop — including Cloudera, which Bisciglia also cofounded — could stand to make money by selling to retailers and other companies that want to run recommendation systems with Hadoop, where log data and other unstructured data can be kept. But WibiData, which partners with Cloudera, among others, has built interfaces above the infrastructure layer that strip away the tedium that would otherwise stop many non-technical people from making decisions on data on the fly.

Experiments by Wibi employs a scientific approach in the sense that for every experiment, there’s a control group to compare against multiple “candidate models” data scientists build to draw on data to personalize content, Bisciglia said. Retailers can then send some share of web traffic to each model until there’s enough data to make statistically significant decisions.

Then the data scientists can use their own tools to determine which model leads to the best results, whether it be revenue, engagement, or some other metric.

In some situations, retailers agree to keep specific products from appearing next to competing products to keep manufacturers happy. Or maybe retailers want to surface a particular product or category in recommendations. Or perhaps a marketer would like to try out an experiment based on a whim. In such cases, people without technical skills can set rules or override them, Bisciglia said.

Altogether, the new system from WibiData stands out for giving several types of people the power to take advantage of big data, and fast.

]]>0This new WibiData software could help retailers sell far more stuff onlinePinć turns your iPhone into a portable VR headset… no controller requiredhttp://venturebeat.com/2014/11/24/pinc-is-the-portable-vr-experience-you-wear-on-your-face-and-control-with-your-hands/
http://venturebeat.com/2014/11/24/pinc-is-the-portable-vr-experience-you-wear-on-your-face-and-control-with-your-hands/#commentsMon, 24 Nov 2014 17:00:42 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=1607702This could be the future of shopping, entertainment and communication. Or it could just be another solution looking for a problem.
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I’m seated at a table in a downtown Toronto condo that’s been converted into the offices of Cordon Development Labs. In front of me is a man with an iPhone 6 strapped to his face. The phone is nestled in a bright-orange, 3-D-printed case that his team has designed. He is gesturing in mid-air using LED-encrusted “rings” on his index fingers.

The man is Milan Baic, president of Cordon. His product is called Pinć (pronounced “Pinch”), and as he waves his arms about like a blind man trying to touch the face of someone he can’t quite reach, I’m told that I’m looking at the future of mobile online shopping.

Baic believes that the problem with mobile commerce – specifically mobile retailing – is that smartphone screens just aren’t big enough for users to really get a sense of what they’re buying. The solution, according to Baic, is virtual reality. That’s where Pinć comes in.

Despite the VR label, warns Baic, don’t compare Pinć to Oculus Rift. The Oculus is a device which, Baic says, forces you to “wear this big thing on your head and […] sit down and plug yourself into a computer. You can’t use your hands to interact with the environment.” The Oculus doesn’t address what Baic sees as VR’s three biggest obstacles to widespread adoption: “Control, portability, and use case.”

Control — that relates to being able to use your body for interaction instead of being limited by a piece of hardware like a game controller. Portability is self-explanatory. Use case means that VR has to offer something beyond immersive game play in order for consumers to widely adopt it.

To solve for all three of these, Baic’s team has developed a product that is part hardware, part software. The odd-looking iPhone case and LED rings make up the hardware component and gives users the portability missing from purpose-built VR systems such as the Oculus Rift. Thanks to a set of aspheric lenses that are suspended about an inch and a half away from the iPhone’s screen, the case lets users see a VR landscape that is rendered in stereoscopic 3-D via split-screen by the software component: the free Pinć app. The product, which has been incubated by Cordon, will be developed by a new company called Pinć VR.

So is the Pinć like Samsung’s Oculus-powered Gear VR? Nope. “The Gear VR is a niche device, design for gaming with a gamepad. The large form factor combined with lack of focus on an actual software platform puts them in a different category,” Baic says.

Above: The prototype LED control ring uses 3 LEDs. Red and green tracking LEDs stay lit, while the third illuminates on clicks. The rings feature magnetic closures which double as power switches. Photo credit: Simon Cohen.

As proof, Baic offers up the real special sauce in Pinć: the twin LED rings you wear on your fingers. Using patented technology, the Pinć app makes use of the iPhone’s rear-facing camera combined with a fisheye lens to track the green and red LEDs’ movement through space. Baic says the lens will be integrated and flush-mounted once the project reaches the production stage.

Built into the rings are clickable thumb pads that, when pressed, cause a third LED to illuminate. When the app detects the extra LED’s light, it interprets it as a click (no Wi-Fi or Bluetooth needed). These rings let you use your hands a la Minority Report instead of being reliant on a game controller, which satisfies Baic’s concern around control.

Baic is very committed to the idea of doing as little hardware development as possible. “We’re not a hardware company. Our primary focus is on software. We didn’t want to bring to market another set of electronics. What we wanted to do was repurpose what was already in people’s pockets,” he says.

As Baic interacts with Pinć, I’m able to see what he sees thanks to an external monitor that has been set up for the demo. Without the benefit of the stereoscopic separation created by the case, I’m left to view what he sees as a split-screen.

Above: The production version of the case will feature a flush-mounted fish-eye lens that gives the iPhone a wider field of view. Photo credit: Pinć VR

The Pinć app displays a floating UI that presents interactive elements on invisible planes. The effect is like standing inside an octagonal prism, with the available apps spread out horizontally, kind of like Android home screens. A set of navigation and system tools appear above and are angled slightly toward you. Where your feet ought to be, there is a virtual keyboard and compass.

Pinć makes use of the iPhone’s accelerometer to track your head’s movements in 3-D space. Though jerky and at times a little nauseating, it works. Your hands (or more specifically, your index fingers) are represented as two white circles that appear to move over the entire 3-D interface as though trapped between invisible layers of glass. While you can move your hands towards you and away from you, this movement in the Z-axis is not reflected inside Pinć. Clicking the thumb pads turns the circles red momentarily – this is your visual confirmation of a successful click.

Above: A render of the inside of the production version of the case. Note the hinges on the lenses instead of rubber-band ligaments. Photo credit: Pinć VR

If there is an equivalent control scheme outside of Pinć, it would be the use of the thumb and index finger on a touch screen: Clicking with either hand is the equivalent of tapping or tapping-and-holding, while clicking with both hands simultaneously delivers multi-touch gestures such as pinch-to-zoom-out. Incidentally, the squeezing or pinching required to activate the thumb pads is how Pinć derives its name.

While clever, and an excellent way to save on hardware costs, the camera+LED control solution has an infuriating side effect. Should the LEDs ever be twisted the wrong way so that the camera can’t see them, or if their brightness isn’t sufficient to be detected against whatever background your environment offers (a sunny day outdoors, as opposed to the preferable darkened room), Pinć simply can’t track their movements. During my brief time trying it out, I could barely get the system to recognize my movements or clicks. “You have to get used to it,” Baic says. He promises that the production version of the rings will be able to mitigate these problems through brighter LEDs that wrap their way around the entire circumference. Let’s hope so.

In the demo, Baic was able to navigate between the “home” screen, various apps such as YouTube and a mock-up shoe retailer, doodle within a basic drawing app, and zoom out to see the entire Pinć interface from a distance. Baic claims that there is “unlimited real estate within this platform,” which brings us to the inevitable topic of revenue and monetization.

Above: Video demo of the Pinć VR iPhone case and app, shot at Cordon Development Labs in Toronto.

Pinć VR has decided to offer the Pinć hardware and software at or below its cost, with backers of its Indiegogo campaign able to get their hands on the basic Pinć packages for $99. This will include the iPhone 6 or 6+ case, as well as a set of LED rings that can be housed inside dedicated slots within the case when not in use. The intent, of course, is to get Pinć into as many hands as possible in order to build up its user base quickly.

Baic claims revenue will come from two sources: advertising and retailing. The advertising component seems obvious, though Baic wasn’t willing to offer details on how or where the ads would be seen. But what’s more unorthodox is his plan for retailers.

Instead of charging a retailer such as Nike, for example, a flat fee for opening a store, a commission structure, or even a fee-per-SKU, Baic has made the unusual decision to charge retailers based on the physical dimensions of their virtual store. In other words, if the real-world equivalent of the Nike Pinć store were 2,000 square feet, that’s what Pinć VR would invoice Nike for.

In effect, this turns Pinć into a virtual shopping mall that has an unlimited amount of real estate to offer, but it charges its tenants as though there were a limit.

“There is something to say about scarcity,” says Baic. “Unlimited space is a good thing when you want to create something, but when you are in a commercial environment you want to create the concept of scarcity. I think that various brands would want to have various different sizes [of stores]. If you look at a first-tier brand like a Nike, they have a certain amount of square footage that they get for their stores. We feel that that’s the ideal way to create reality out of virtual reality.”

It’s not a model without precedent: Linden Labs’ Second Lifecharges its users for real estate within the virtual confines of the simulation, even though the Second Life platform possesses enough theoretical room to replicate the Earth’s entire surface area 140 times over. Unlike Second Life, where users own and can rent out or resell their real estate, stores within Pinć will be rental only. Baic was mum on how these rates would be calculated but suggested that much like in the real world, negotiation would play a role.

Presumably retailers willing to sign an agreement at the early stages would be given healthy incentives, while those that wait until the Pinć community has grown will see steeper rates.

To help retailers get set up within Pinć, Pinć VR is offering its services as a development house, but this is purely optional. The company plans to release an SDK (that will ship with the Indiegogo fulfillment), which would give a third party the ability to become a Pinć developer. Retailers who are very committed to the platform could easily hire their own in-house devs.

Assuming for the moment that big brands do sign on, these companies must shoulder an additional burden as virtual Pinć businesses: 3-D modeling. Pinć VR hasn’t mandated that all products in virtual stores be available as 3-D objects, but given that the interface is built with these objects in mind, shoppers would likely stay clear of stores that didn’t use them. So retailers would be on the hook for the 3-D scanning of their merchandise, or perhaps large businesses, such as Amazon or Walmart, may require that the manufacturer do the work.

Because VR is still in its infancy and because VR shopping is even more embryonic (Amazon’s pseudo-3-D Dynamic Perspective function in its Fire Phone notwithstanding), the added expense of creating decent 3-D models could be a deal-breaker. On the other hand, because of Pinć’s real-world real estate conceit, there would be far fewer 3-D models needed for each store because of the limited room.

The big, unanswered question with Pinć is, do consumers even want such an experience?

Surprisingly, Baic doesn’t have the answer. The Indiegogo campaign, which launches today, will be the first time for Pinć VR to test the waters and see how much enthusiasm exists for a portable, phone-based VR system.

If it fails, it will merely be the latest in a long line of solutions that went in search of non-existent problems.

If it works, it could be the biggest disruption in retail, entertainment, and communication since the Internet itself.

]]>0Pinć turns your iPhone into a portable VR headset… no controller requiredA Zappos pop-up shop becomes a test to change the nature of mom-and-pop retailhttp://venturebeat.com/2014/11/19/a-zappos-pop-up-shop-becomes-a-test-to-change-the-nature-of-mom-and-pop-retail/
http://venturebeat.com/2014/11/19/a-zappos-pop-up-shop-becomes-a-test-to-change-the-nature-of-mom-and-pop-retail/#commentsWed, 19 Nov 2014 21:29:58 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=1609367Online retail giant Zappos.com has just launched a 20,000-foot physical retail store in its home of downtown Las Vegas. The experimental space is run in partnership with retail logistics startup OrderWithMe, which just raised $28 million for an ambitious project to change the nature of mom-and-pop retail. The concept enables a more cooperative relationship between big online […]
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Online retail giant Zappos.com has just launched a 20,000-foot physical retail store in its home of downtown Las Vegas. The experimental space is run in partnership with retail logistics startup OrderWithMe, which just raised $28 million for an ambitious project to change the nature of mom-and-pop retail.

The concept enables a more cooperative relationship between big online retailers and smaller physical retailers. Online retailers will exploit physical retailers as shipping nodes, strategically placing product in their back rooms so that they can get product to consumers with same-day shipping. Mom-and-pop shops will exploit big online retailers’ vast storage capacity to help customers get the sizes and styles they want, without having to stock it all themselves.

“The convergence of online and offline seems to be an unstoppable force that I believe will ultimately change the face of retail,” Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh explained to us in an email. “We are currently in a really interesting time for retail where on one hand many online stores are looking to have more of a brick-and-mortar presence for branding purposes (which is a big part of why we are launching a 20,000-square-foot Zappos pop-up shop in downtown Las Vegas for the holidays) and on the other hand many brick-and-mortar stores are looking to enhance their experience with more access to inventory in the cloud.”

The big strategy is possible thanks to a new shopping kiosk to be placed in physical retailers around the country.

Selling with ShopWithMe

OrderWithMe’s original service aimed to provide smaller retail outlets the buying power of big box chains. Through smart algorithms, mom-and-pop retailers could band together and buy products in bulk for discount; OrderWithMe would handle negotiating the best deals and efficiently ship all the orders to each store. For manufacturers, there wasn’t much difference between selling to a big chain like Costco or a federation of smaller stores combined through OrderWithMe: Both were one big order with a similar discount.

Unfortunately for small retailers, they were still hit by the massive decline in foot traffic sales and the corresponding surge in “showrooming” — customers who visit stores to try on or handle products and then buy online. The problem got so bad that one store owner in Australia purportedly started charging $5 for anyone “just looking” at her wares.

In a more positive approach to fix declining foot traffic sales, OrderWithMe has physically placed the Internet experience inside of retail stores with a new touch-screen kiosk. If a style, color, or size isn’t in stock, customers can simply scan a barcode on the ShopWithMe kiosk and have the product shipped to them, ideally the same day.

Customer experience beats logistics

Instead of hassling with with supply logistics, OrderWithMe CEO Jonathan Jenkins imagines that physical retailers can put more energy into curating a better experience. Mom-and-pop shops know local tastes and can develop a personal relationship with their neighbors much better than can a digital giant like Amazon or Zappos.

“Retailers can use their on-hand product to effectively sell beyond their current inventory by connecting them to a network of ShopWithMe retailers and suppliers that drop ship on their behalf,” Jenkins said. “Independent retailers are known for their customer service and their ability to curate product offerings. I believe the future of physical retail will focus on these strengths. Businesses will leverage their brick-and-mortar locations by making them destinations for consumer discovery and personalized, expert advice on products.”

What do big box retailers get out of it?

Small businesses have something that big box retailers and manufacturers need: reach.

“These independent retailers and suppliers create nodes, which, when linked together by the ShopWithMe platform, act like a network of small distribution centers around the country. This converts the retailer’s existing square footage and inventory into a fulfillment center for orders,” explained Jenkins.

As VentureBeat has covered before, same-day shipping is a logistical nightmare for Amazon, eBay, Google, and other big companies. They have to figure out how to predict sales and, in some cases, buy warehouses around the country.

Small retailers shops naturally open up near consumers, so they’re the ideal node for shipping fulfillment. It’s just a matter of strategically placing stock in them to solve the same-day shipping puzzle.

Zappos and beyond

The Zappos partnership is a bit of a hybrid, as Hsieh said the company may actually build more physical retailers around the country.

“A lot of people only know that Zappos sells shoes, and aren’t aware of our large selection of clothing. We’ll be showcasing different lifestyles throughout the pop-up shop, and in fact most of the pop-up shop will be dedicated to clothing instead of shoes,” Hsieh wrote.

When someone visits a physical retailer, they see a whole slew of products they never intended to shop for. The same isn’t true for Zappos.com, where customers can pinpoint search for the item they want and then leave the website without ever knowing that the company sells a lot of different products.

If the Zappos pop-up is a success, the company may begin to expand around the country, just like its owner, Amazon.com, will be doing in New York City in the near future. Additionally, pop-up shops may provide Zappos with all kinds of shopping behavior data that they could never learn from the website alone.

The Vegas pop-up shop is an experiment for both Zappos and OrderWithMe. It makes sense that both big online retailers and smaller mom-and-pop shops would want to co-opt each other’s strengths. It just takes some smart technology to help them do it.

As Jenkins concluded, “With ShopWithMe I am not trying to change a retailer — but to change all of retail.”

]]>0A Zappos pop-up shop becomes a test to change the nature of mom-and-pop retailAttention, shoppers: Now you can target anything inside a Target storehttp://venturebeat.com/2014/11/17/attention-shoppers-now-you-can-target-anything-inside-a-target-store/
http://venturebeat.com/2014/11/17/attention-shoppers-now-you-can-target-anything-inside-a-target-store/#commentsMon, 17 Nov 2014 13:00:29 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=1606101Target may have been behind the curve in store cyber-security, but it’s hoping to jump ahead by launching today in-store navigation and product finding for its app. This is the first time Target has offered in-store functions for all of its 1801 stores in the U.S. It’s part of the retailer’s digital reboot, including updated […]
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Target may have been behind the curve in store cyber-security, but it’s hoping to jump ahead by launching today in-store navigation and product finding for its app.

This is the first time Target has offered in-store functions for all of its 1801 stores in the U.S. It’s part of the retailer’s digital reboot, including updated iPhone and iPad apps, and desktop and mobile websites.

The new chapter in the history of retailing was implemented by Bellevue, Washington-based Point Inside, which has developed similar capabilities using its StoreMode platform for two other chains, Lowe’s home products stores and Michigan-based Meijer.

“What’s been missing for the physical world has been the digitization of a store,” Point Inside CEO and cofounder Josh Marti told VentureBeat.

With the updated Target app, a shopper begins by making a shopping list, using a type-ahead function that knows brand names. The app indicates if the product is available in that store.

The navigation and available product inventory are store-specific, which Marti said distinguishes his company’s retailer apps from competitors involved in creating in-store shopper engagement, such as IBM Smarter Commerce.

“We treat every store as a snowflake,” he said.

Inside the store, Marti said, the app automatically switches to a different mode that is triggered by the geofencing surrounding every Target. A map shows the user the aisle location of each of the products on the shopping list. Once you find the Scotch tape, for example, you can manually delete it from your list.

And the updated app “will now highlight ‘doorbuster’ sales on Black Friday,” he said.

But, eager shoppers, don’t start your engines quite yet. Although Point Inside’s platform supports routing, the app doesn’t yet point out the fastest path to your dream bargain. In-store beacons or similar in-store communications, which Target does not yet have, would be required.

You might be expecting a navigational “blue dot” to show where you are on the map, but this is also missing — since GPS is lost inside the store. The map shown references the store entrance as a guidepost. (Beacons would also enable blue dots.)

The good news for shoppers wanting blue dots and fastest paths is that, according to Marti, “every retailer we’ve seen is doing piloting with beacons.”

This new version of the Target app is now available for iOS devices via Apple’s App Store, and it covers every U.S. store. The Android version has some of the same functionality but only covers about 40 U.S. stores. Marti said a full Android version for all stores is in the works.

Given Target’s rough history with cyber-security, we asked if any special precautions had been taken. Marti noted that his Point Inside’s platform does not support personal identification, so any break-in to their system would only get some unnamed person’s shopping list and map.

But there is a buy button, so personal information can reside in the app. The buy button also points to a near future for Target and similar retailers, when online versus offline shopping will become a distinction without a difference. Shoppers will be able to find products in the store and buy them online, or buy them online and pick them up in the store, or send a list to the store and pick items up later.

]]>0Attention, shoppers: Now you can target anything inside a Target storeBrickstream acquires Nomi to form a full-service in-store analytics shophttp://venturebeat.com/2014/10/29/brickstream-acquires-nomi-to-form-a-full-service-in-store-analytics-shop/
http://venturebeat.com/2014/10/29/brickstream-acquires-nomi-to-form-a-full-service-in-store-analytics-shop/#commentsWed, 29 Oct 2014 12:00:03 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=1590799As much as Amazon and other online mega-retailers are gaining popularity, we still shop a whole lot in brick-and-mortar stores, and retailers are increasingly looking to optimize those instances.
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As much as Amazon and other online mega-retailers are gaining popularity, we still shop a whole lot in brick-and-mortar stores, and retailers are increasingly looking to optimize those instances.

Today, Brickstream, a 14-year-old company that makes sensors and software to help retailers track and analyze shoppers, announced it has acquired two-year-old startup Nomi in an all-equity deal at undisclosed terms, although the combined companies are now valued at $200 million with a projected revenue of $50 million for next year, according to a source with knowledge of the matter.

Nomi provides a wide range of in-store tools for retailers, a bit like selling Estimote’s iBeacon sensors, Rover’s mobile app software development kit, Privy’s online-to-offline attribution tools, and more all from one vendor. Brickstream, on the other hand, sells software and sensors that are mainly focused on store traffic, reducing long lines, and traffic mapping.

Uniting the two companies’ complementary products will undoubtedly yield a full-service vendor for in-store tracking and analytics. Moreover, while Nomi is fairly young, Brickstream’s decade and a half in business have seen it install more than 100,000 sensors via more than 50 channel partners in 65 countries.

But Nomi is bringing compatibility with iBeacon, a Bluetooth low-energy proximity-sensing technology from Apple that’s been garnering a lot of attention and popularity lately. Brickstream’s sensors are not iBeacon-based.

The companies compete with others including Euclid and Swarm Mobile.

Nomi was founded by Wesley Barrow, Corey Capasso, and Marc Ferrentino and has raised $13 million in funding. Brickstream raised an undisclosed amount of debt financing from Trinity Ventures in July and $8.7 million in funding in April.

]]>0Brickstream acquires Nomi to form a full-service in-store analytics shopStitch Labs grabs $3.5M to keep your online store running faster and more smoothlyhttp://venturebeat.com/2014/08/20/stitch-labs-grabs-3-5m-to-keep-your-online-store-running-faster-and-more-smoothly/
http://venturebeat.com/2014/08/20/stitch-labs-grabs-3-5m-to-keep-your-online-store-running-faster-and-more-smoothly/#commentsWed, 20 Aug 2014 19:17:00 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=1532103As online retail and wholesaling grows, more and more actual stuff needs to be managed at the same speed, volume, and scale as online sales. That’s where Stitch Labs comes in, and with a new $3.5 million of funding as of today, it’s looking to grow its teams as it works to reach more retailers […]
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As online retail and wholesaling grows, more and more actual stuff needs to be managed at the same speed, volume, and scale as online sales.

That’s where Stitch Labs comes in, and with a new $3.5 million of funding as of today, it’s looking to grow its teams as it works to reach more retailers and wholesalers.

Stitch Labs’ software helps mainly with three things: managing inventory, gathering and making data-driven decisions, and managing multiple sales channels. Its suite of tools help with inventory, orders, analytics, purchasing, operations, and sales.

Stitch Lab’s integration with several major sales channels such as eBay, Amazon, Bigcommerce, Square, Etsy (which it integrated with back in 2011), and more, makes it a powerful tool for retailers and wholesalers that have to manage across these channels. It will also make it even easier for Stitch Labs to rapidly acquire more customers, of a variety of sizes, as it can court companies using any of these selling platforms.

“Stitch is growing at a rapid pace. In fact, orders managed through the Stitch platform have increased by more than 700 percent over the past year alone,” said Stitch Labs founder and chief executive Brandon Levey in a statement.

“This capital gives us additional resources to innovate and continue delivering on our vision of simplifying and unifying commerce for multichannel retailers on a larger scale.”

Heads up, iBeacon developers: Apple is gearing up to launch a new product that will utilize its location-aware iBeacon technology, according to a filing with the Federal Communications Commission — discovered by TUAW.

Apple’s iBeacon technology has recently made waves in the retail industry. The system enables apps to pin-point exactly where a user is located in relation to an iBeacon sensor, optimistically creating new opportunities for businesses to interact with customers in-store.

Third-party companies have long offered iBeacon-powered hardware, but Apple has yet to debut its own device. Now, according to the filing below, Apple-branded hardware is on the way, but as 9to5Mac points out, it’s not yet clear how the new hardware will be marketed.

It takes lots of time to walk around a store and change all of those price tags.

The San Jose, California-based Altierre Corp. makes digital product-labeling system that connects back to a retailer’s pricing systems via low-power wireless technology.

Above: Altierre’s digital labels.

This enables a retailer to change the prices of goods around the store quickly. A store manager could quickly put a sale price on a certain products.

The system also shows the retailer when items need restocking and the temperature, lighting, and customer traffic around products.

The technology has some well-monied believers. Altierre announced today that it had secured $21 million in new funding. A couple of new investors, Stratim Capital and D.E. Shaw & Co., led the round while existing investors ATA Ventures, DuPont Capital Management, Labrador Ventures, and Kinetic Ventures also participated.

This late-stage funding brings the company’s total up to $80 million since Altierre got its start in 2003.

]]>0Altierre raises $21M so that retailers never have to change price tags againRetailer 'The Fancy' may raise new funding at a $1.2B valuationhttp://venturebeat.com/2014/06/27/retailer-the-fancy-may-raise-new-funding-at-a-1-2b-valuation/
http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/27/retailer-the-fancy-may-raise-new-funding-at-a-1-2b-valuation/#commentsFri, 27 Jun 2014 22:30:40 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=1498968The quirky retail service may be the latest startup to join the billion-dollar valuation club.
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Retail service The Fancy could be the latest startup to join the billion-dollar valuation club upon raising a new round of investment, reports Bloomberg.

The Fancy is an online retail service that presents a pinboard-style layout of quirky, interesting, outlandish, and gimmicky products, and people may then bookmark the things they like by clicking a “Fancy’d” button. Many of these items are available for sale, and it has enough high-end products with expensive price tags that the $10 shipping rate usually doesn’t apply. The startup also sells what it refers to as Fancy Boxes, a random mix of items listed on The Fancy that customers can subscribe to for $40 per month.

I’ve actually tried the Fancy Box subscriptions, and they are pretty hit-or-miss. I ended up canceling after realizing I’d accumulated nearly an entire storage bin’s worth of Fancy Box junk I hadn’t even opened. (So if anyone wants my bomb-shaped ice mold whiskey shot glasses or hamburger meat-shaping tool, they are more than welcome to it.) That said, it was fun to get a package in the mail once a month, and the service is obviously got the attention of investors, both seasoned and celebrity alike.

The Fancy’s last round, which closed back in July, came in at $53 million from credit card company American Express, billionaire investor Len Blavatnik, and actor Will Smith. The round pushed the startup’s valuation to an estimated $600 million. However, if the news of The Fancy raising a fresh round is true that valuation could more than double, as previously mentioned.

VentureBeat is reaching out to The Fancy for further details, and we will update this post with any new information.

]]>0Retailer 'The Fancy' may raise new funding at a $1.2B valuationСrowdSystems grabs $1M to give retail stores better analyticshttp://venturebeat.com/2014/05/16/%d1%81rowdsystems-grabs-1m-to-give-retail-stores-better-analytics/
http://venturebeat.com/2014/05/16/%d1%81rowdsystems-grabs-1m-to-give-retail-stores-better-analytics/#commentsFri, 16 May 2014 15:21:47 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=1474767Analytics startup CrowdSystems has raised a fresh $1 million round of funding, the company announced today. CrowdSystems’ platform offers retail stores a set of research tools for evaluating the operations of a physical store. The startup collects data by enticing shoppers to sign up via mobile app TopMission and paying them to perform various tasks (rating personnel/employees, providing feedback on […]
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Analytics startup CrowdSystems has raised a fresh $1 million round of funding, the company announced today.

CrowdSystems’ platform offers retail stores a set of research tools for evaluating the operations of a physical store. The startup collects data by enticing shoppers to sign up via mobile app TopMission and paying them to perform various tasks (rating personnel/employees, providing feedback on advertising, inspecting merchandising displays, etc.).

It’s sort of like a secret shopper program, but one that scales beyond a single retail store chain.

The startup said it plans to use the new capital to further develop its retail analytics platform and expand the range of tools it uses to collect data. The new round, CrowdSystems’ first, was led by InVenture Partners.

Founded in 2013, the Moscow-based company has over 100,000 users providing information to retailers in 450 cities across the world. Some of CrowdSystems’ clients include Colgate-Palmolive, Svyaznoy, and RedBull.

In a new study, eMarketer ranked the sales performance of “more than 225 U.S.-based retailers,” out of which Apple topped the list. Unsurprisingly, competing stores like Best Buy didn’t even fall among the top 15 retailers.

Once again, it’s clear just how important Apple’s brick and mortar presence is for the success of its brand.

It’s noteworthy, however, that this survey does not include Apple competitors which are not considered top retailers by eMarketer, including the comparatively small chains run by Microsoft and Samsung. Additionally, third-party data is never flawless; it’s worth taking this study with a grain of sand.

]]>0Apple averages more sales per square foot than any other U.S. retailer (study)Target CEO steps down following massive customer data breachhttp://venturebeat.com/2014/05/05/target-ceo-steps-down-following-massive-customer-data-breach/
http://venturebeat.com/2014/05/05/target-ceo-steps-down-following-massive-customer-data-breach/#commentsMon, 05 May 2014 13:09:40 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=1466909The fallout from Target’s data breach continues to rock the company. Target announced today that CEO Gregg Steinhafel is resigning, following a huge data breach last year that exposed the credit and debit card information of 40 million retail customers. A 35-year Target veteran, Steinhafel is also stepping down from his role as president and chairman of […]
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The fallout from Target’s data breach continues to rock the company.

Target announced today that CEO Gregg Steinhafel is resigning, following a huge data breach last year that exposed the credit and debit card information of 40 million retail customers. A 35-year Target veteran, Steinhafel is also stepping down from his role as president and chairman of the company’s board.

“The last several months have tested Target in unprecedented ways,” Steinhafel wrote in a letter to the board today. “From the beginning, I have been committed to ensuring Target emerges from the data breach a better company, more focused on delivering for our guests.”

Following the breach, Target said it’s speeding up the adoption of chip-based credit and debit cards. The company is expected to replace its own branded cards with chip and PIN security next year.

Target chief financial officer John Mulligan will serve as interim president and CEO until the company finds a replacement for Steinhafel. The company last week hired a new CIO, Bob DeRodes, replacing the former CIO who resigned in March.

Looking for ways to connect the online behavior of digital customers on your e-commerce site with the in-person shopping behaviors of customers in your physical stores? And market in real time, digitally, with people walking your aisles?

Now that’s possible.

Toronto-based startup Aislelabs launched a marketing automation platform for brick-and-mortar retailers today, saying it’s the first-ever solution that will help retailers build real-time digital marketing campaigns for in-store deployment and connect them with their existing online marketing campaigns in major systems such as Salesforce (Pardot), Adobe, Oracle, SAP, and Marketo.

The company’s AislelabsFlow product uses Wi-Fi to help retailers understand where customers are going in their store and what they’re doing, providing analytics that can help retailers design their stores to generate maximum revenue. And via Apple’s Bluetooth-based iBeacon technology, the company delivers real-time automated marketing campaigns in its AislelabsEngage product, which integrates into the retailers’ own apps, as well as third-party apps.

This helps retailers build relationships locally by rewarding loyal customers and repeat visitors. It also allows retailers to create in-store digital marketing campaigns that target very precise locations and behavior.

For example, visitors to the high-margin cosmetics counter could receive incentives to purchase more. Alternatively, if they’ve spent a long time there without buying, a retailer could opt to send them a coupon or special offer. Retailers can also create social offers, promising discounts for sharing deals with friends on Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest.

Retailers can also target nearby shoppers who haven’t even walked in the door, as iBeacon’s Bluetooth implementation has up to 50 meters, or 150 feet, of range.

Retailers can create these campaigns via a web-based interface, Aislelabs says, building multi-step engagement plans that are personalized to each unique visitor based on their preferences, frequency of visits, and what is known about them from their digital device. Data from known users who self-identify can then be streamed to the retailer’s standard marketing automation engine and CRM system for further follow-up.

The company plans to support all major marketing systems, CTO Nilesh Bansal said, adding that the company also supports major CRM and email marketing systems — and will serve “all major providers” by the end of the next quarter.

]]>0Aislelabs lets physical retailers market in real time via iBeacon, WiFi, and GPSBig retail is watching you, & Brickstream is helping them do ithttp://venturebeat.com/2014/04/14/big-retail-is-watching-you-brickstream-is-helping-them-do-it/
http://venturebeat.com/2014/04/14/big-retail-is-watching-you-brickstream-is-helping-them-do-it/#commentsMon, 14 Apr 2014 20:45:18 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=1449107Should being tracked while you are shopping inside a store be considered creepy? Or a great idea worth around $9 million?
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Should being tracked while you are shopping inside a store be considered creepy?

Not according to behavior-intelligence company Brickstream, which helps brick-and-mortar retailers track and analyze shopper’s behaviors.

What’s more, it looks like the startup just bagged about $8.7 million in new funding, according to an SEC filing today.

Although the document does not provide much detail, it does state that the first sale was made on March 17, 2014; six investors have signed on thus far; and the company is seeking about $167,000 more for this round.

The company’s products and services can also be used in entertainment venues, hospitals, high-traffic areas such as airports, and much more.

Brickstream is not the only company working to help brick-and-mortar retailers engage more with their shoppers. Index and Euclid also provide tracking and analysis of store shoppers to help retailers personalize shoppers’ experiences and gather data on shoppers’ behaviors. Shopkick, on the other hand, is consumer-facing and provides shoppers with special offers (called “kicks”) when they enter a participating store.

Brickstream was founded in 2000 and is based in Norcross, Ga. Previous investors include Columbia Capital, Mohr Davidow Ventures, and RBC Technology Ventures. The company also raised a total of $21.5 million prior to this round.

]]>0Big retail is watching you, & Brickstream is helping them do itBigcommerce grabs two key new hires and a new SF office to keep ‘democratizing retail’http://venturebeat.com/2014/03/19/bigcommerce-grabs-two-key-new-hires-and-a-new-sf-office-to-keep-democratizing-retail/
http://venturebeat.com/2014/03/19/bigcommerce-grabs-two-key-new-hires-and-a-new-sf-office-to-keep-democratizing-retail/#commentsWed, 19 Mar 2014 13:00:14 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=1165313Gaming execs: Join 180 select leaders from King, Glu, Rovio, Unity, Facebook, and more to plan your path to global domination in 2015. GamesBeat Summit is invite-only -- apply here. Ticket prices increase on March 6 Pacific! There’s a new kid on the (SoMa) block, and his name is Big — Bigcommerce. You heard right: Bigcommerce has just opened a new office […]
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There’s a new kid on the (SoMa) block, and his name is Big — Bigcommerce.

You heard right: Bigcommerce has just opened a new office in San Francisco’s SoMa district (in MoPub’s old space) and has made two key new hires. West Stringfellow, previously at PayPal and Amazon among others, recently joined as the new chief product officer, and Ron Pragides just became its new VP of engineering.

“I’ve been quietly setting the foundation for a rapid acceleration,” said Stringfellow during a call with VentureBeat. So far, he’s helped open the San Francisco office, bring Pragides onto the team, and get the board’s approval for over 40 new engineering hires. “It all speaks to the theme of big e-commerce accelerating,” he added.

Hiring Pragides to lead the engineering team is a particularly key step for Stringfellow. Pragides has worked at both of the companies Stringfellow and his colleagues admire: Salesforce and Twitter.

“Salesforce is one of those Silicon Valley darling stories [and] at Twitter, a huge part of his job was getting the engineers at Twitter to raise their games,” Stringfellow said of his new engineering leader.

Hiring Pragides is also complementary to the company’s reason for opening an office in San Francisco. “The density of talent in SF is unparalleled and especially the density of talent to solve the problems we’re solving,” shared Stringfellow. Bigcommerce is rapidly expanding, and its technology and engineering team need to catch up and be able to support it.

And although there are other e-commerce players in the game (Etsy, Shopify, eBay, etc.), Stringfellow is not worried about them, mainly because Bigcommerce is so different from them.

Stringfellows views Etsy, for example, as having a particular appeal to a particular demographic. eBay is a “large anonymous marketplace,” and Amazon is primarily focused on providing the lowest price to shoppers without regards for the seller.

Bigcommerce, on the other hand, is “democratizing retail” and powering e-commerce for merchants.

“Our customers are more stable, stay on the platform longer,” he explained. “We attract merchants who are more serious about having an e-commerce business. We don’t pay attention to [competitors] though, we’re focused on winning the customers’ hearts and minds.” He added that a lot of their customers are former Volusion and Shopify customers.

As for his plans for the upcoming year, Stringfellow didn’t want to reveal too much about what Bigcommerce has in the pipeline, but he did say that most important will be hiring to improve product quality, stability of the platform, and the velocity at which the team can improve features. Broadening brand awareness and expanding into new verticals and internationally are also on the horizon.

“I’ve never worked at a company before where the problem is ‘what do you do with the overwhelming opportunity,’” continued Stringfellow. Bigcommerce has seen year-to-year growth of 100 percent.

“Candidly, the biggest challenge that we have is prioritizing the amazing number of opportunities that are presented to us on a daily basis. It’s a very high-class problem to have,” he concluded.

]]>0Bigcommerce grabs two key new hires and a new SF office to keep ‘democratizing retail’Shopkick users have earned $25M in rewards, scanned 70M products, and viewed 4B offershttp://venturebeat.com/2014/02/13/shopkick-users-have-earned-25m-in-rewards-scanned-70m-products-and-viewed-4b-offers/
http://venturebeat.com/2014/02/13/shopkick-users-have-earned-25m-in-rewards-scanned-70m-products-and-viewed-4b-offers/#commentsThu, 13 Feb 2014 18:04:27 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=897600Shopkick is the most used real-world shopping app, with the most active users and time spent in the app per user per month.
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The company has rewarded shoppers with $25 million and delivered $800 million in sales to its partners, it said today.

Shopkick is a mobile app that you use to earn rewards and deals, known as “kicks,” simply by walking into a retail store. You can redeem Kicks for store gift cards, free coffee or dinner, accessories, song downloads, movie tickets, donations to charity, etc.

Today, Shopkick shared some key metrics about just how well it is doing.

Shopkick is the most used real-world shopping app, with the most active users and time spent in the app per user per month, according to Nielsen ratings.

Shoppers have earned $25 million and redeemed 7 million gift cards since Shopkick launched in 2010. They have scanned 70 million products, with 14 million scanned in the most recent quarter. People have viewed 4 billion product offers and walked into 35 million stores.

The startup recently generated buzz with the launch of the ShopBeacon, a Bluetooth-LE-based platform that uses shoppers’ in-store locations to serve them department-level recommendations, deals, and rewards. Shopkick partnered with Macy’s for the initial ShopBeacon trial, claiming it was the first time a large mass retailer deployed a beacon solution. ShopBeacon is now in action in Macy’s San Francisco and New York stores.

American Eagle is also installing it in 100 locations, and Shopkick aims to have the technology deployed in more than a thousand retail stores by the end of Q1 2014.

Beacon technology is red-hot right now, with heavyweights like PayPal and Apple developing their own, as well as startups like Shopkick, Estimote, and Swirl.

Beacons have the potential to transform physical retail by creating a bridge between the online and offline shopping worlds. A vast majority of retail still happens offline. However, online retailers have an advantage in that they have access to customer data — who they are, what they are looking for, and their shopping behavior. This creates opportunities to hit them with targeted offers.

Physical retailers, on the other hand, have little idea who walks in to their store and what they look at until checkout. Beacons make it possible to fill in these data holes.

More than 10,000 individual stores are now using Shopkick. The company said it drove more than $500 million in revenue for retail and brand partners in 2013, compared to $200 million in 2012, and reached its first profitable in Q4 2012.

It now has major retail partnerships last year with Macy’s, Old Navy, Best Buy, Target, American Eagle Outfitters, JCPenney, Crate and Barrel, and The Sports Authority. It now works with over 150 brand partners including P&G, Unilever, Mondelez, L’Oreal, Revlon, Pepsi, General Mills, and HP.

The Bay Area startup has raised a total of $20 million from Kleiner, Greylock Partners, Reid Hoffman (investing as an individual before he became a partner at Greylock), Citi Growth Ventures & Innovation Group, and Ron Conway’s SV Angel.

]]>0Shopkick users have earned $25M in rewards, scanned 70M products, and viewed 4B offersStores using LightSpeed processed $6B in transactions last yearhttp://venturebeat.com/2014/01/13/lightspeed-stores-6-billion/
http://venturebeat.com/2014/01/13/lightspeed-stores-6-billion/#commentsMon, 13 Jan 2014 18:47:13 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=881676Retail software maker LightSpeed today announced a solution that helps stores sell both on and off the web. And although it has fewer vendors than competitor Shopify, LightSpeed says its customers process substantially more payments.
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But Shopify isn’t the only software maker aiming to connect retail across cyberspace and the real world.

LightSpeed, a competing retail software provider, today announced a solution that helps stores sell both on and off the web. And although it has fewer vendors, LightSpeed says its customers process substantially more payments than Shopify’s vendors.

LightSpeed today revealed that its 17,000 retailers processed roughly $6 billion in transactions last year, or more than $352,000 per customer. Meanwhile, Shopify processed nearly $1.7 billion in payments across its 80,000 stores in 2013, according to a Shopify representative.

“It really does speak to our very different approach,” said LightSpeed CEO Dax Dasilva in a conversation with VentureBeat. “Our type of retailer needs a full set of tools. And we were brick-and-mortar first, so we built our tools with the brick and mortar store in mind.

“But now [our vendors] can continue that conversation with customers after they leave the store.”

Dasilva is referring to the launch of LightSpeed’s web-based system for managing sales, inventory, and customer relationships. Accessible from an iPad app or any modern web browser, it enables LightSpeed vendors to consolidate their offline and online sales into a single dashboard. Dasilva thinks its ease of use might encourage some of LightSpeed’s offline-only vendors to set up a web store.

A distinguishing factor between LightSpeed’s cloud and other solutions is its integration with suppliers, noted Dasilva. So if you operate a bike store, the system will connect you with directly your bike suppliers; it can make order suggestions and even replenish your stock, if you enable that feature.

“That’s not something that an e-commerce system really offers,” said Dasilva. “We add tons of new supplier catalogs every week.”

LightSpeed got its start as a retail system built for a Mac dealership with four stores. The project ended up getting shelved, but other Apple dealerships were interested, so Dasilva took the best ideas and started Lightspeed in 2005.

“But I made sure this retail system was going to be versatile, not just related to electronics and computer stores,” he said.

“This was when the Apple stores were really reinventing retail, and this was a way to get the Apple store magic into other retail spaces,” said Dasilva. “We really rode that wave.”

Now LightSpeed has 17,000 vendors using its system, 7,000 of which signed up last year. Most are small, local retailers, but larger chains and brands are beginning to use LightSpeed, including Adidas (for its pop-up stores) and Toms Shoes.

Going forward, Dasilva is planning to expand LightSpeed’s analytics capabilities. He said customers are clamoring for more useable data and dashboards.

“We want to take that much further in terms of them being able to act on trends that are happening with their inventory and with their customers,” he said.

LightSpeed’s revenue grew more than 50 percent last year, according to Dasilva, and its employee count swelled from 53 to 156 over the past 18 months. “It’s been pretty crazy,” he said through a laugh.

]]>0Stores using LightSpeed processed $6B in transactions last yearMoseying toward the mainstream: Overstock.com now largest Internet retailer to accept Bitcoinhttp://venturebeat.com/2014/01/09/moseying-towards-the-mainstream-overstock-com-now-largest-internet-retailer-to-accept-bitcoin/
http://venturebeat.com/2014/01/09/moseying-towards-the-mainstream-overstock-com-now-largest-internet-retailer-to-accept-bitcoin/#commentsThu, 09 Jan 2014 21:38:56 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=881302This is the largest Bitcoin merchant integration to date, and it's an exciting moment for Bitcoin enthusiasts eager to push the "crypto-currency" into the mainstream.
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You can now use Bitcoin to buy all the discounted bedding, jewelry, and furniture your heart desires.

“For the first time ever, customers can purchase a wide selection of goods with Bitcoins — from electronics to home accessories — from a trusted, branded vendor,” Coinbase said on its blog. “We believe that Bitcoin is nearing a tipping point for broad consumer adoption.”

2013 is when Bitcoin made its way into mainstream consciousness. The currency is volatile and controversial — there are those who say it is the future of money, and others who call it evil. While many more people have now heard of Bitcoin, far fewer are buying it, and even fewer are using it in regular life.

“Most people are using it like an asset right now, investing in it like gold or Google” said Adam Draper, who runs a Bitcoin startup accelerator called Boost. “Bitcoin has so much potential, and that’s why the believers are trying to facilitate its use as a currency, so people use to buy things and spread it around more.”

The currency’s volatility is part of what deters retailers and Bitcoin owners from accepting and spending it. The fear is that if Bitcoin is valued at one price and then drops down, the merchant loses money. Or if the price goes up, the owner would have been better off keeping their Bitcoin.

Coinbase created a set of merchant tools to deal this concern. It guarantees a certain exchange rate, and immediately cashes out that Bitcoin value and transfers it in dollars to the retailer. Coinbase assumes the risk, rather than the retailer.

There are also tangible benefits beyond “pushing the movement forward” to accepting Bitcoin. The currency eliminates credit card processing fees, so it’s much cheaper for retailers than accepting payments from Visa, MasterCard, American Express, or PayPal.

TouchofModern has a crazy, beautiful coffee table that I’d love to put in my home. Sadly, it’s about $2,500 — and the sleek Zero Chaise Lounge above is about $3,600 — and I don’t really want to drop three or four large on something I’ve only seen online.

Ten percent to 30 percent of Americans, however, disagree with me.

According to a new study on the future of retail conducted by WalkerSands, 10 percent of the thousand consumers surveyed said they’d spend over $1,000 online on products they’ve never seen in person, touched, handled, or — in my case — sat on. Another 16 percent would spend between $500 and $1,000 on unseen products, while the solid plurality, at 45 percent, said they’d spend between $100 and $500.

That 10 percent number, however, jumps to 30 percent when online retailers put the magic of free shipping and free returns on the table.

According to the study, fewer than 1 percent of consumers “never” shop online, and most of us shop online at least once a month. Almost 20 percent of us buy online one to two times a week, and some übershoppers — 5 percent of Americans — buy online three or more times a week. Interestingly, almost all of us, 95 percent, have bought at least one thing from Amazon.com.

Two categories, however, lag, and those are food and luxury goods.

Thirty-seven percent of consumers said they’d never buy food from Amazon — which might change as Amazon expands its grocery-buying and -delivery service — and 29 percent said they’d never buy luxury goods from the dominant online retailer.

Interestingly, it appears renting goods and services is likely to make a comeback in the coming era of increasingly digital buying. According to the study, 16 percent of us would rather rent books than buy them, with smaller percentages saying similar things for consumer electronics and household tools. Rental rates are expected to rise 123 percent in 2014 for sporting goods, and 129 percent for tools. Luxury goods rentals are also rising — up to 113 percent in 2014, according to WalkerSands.

]]>2Future of retail study: 30% of Americans would buy $1,000+ products onlineRetail versus e-tail: Here's who won the 2013 shopping seasonhttp://venturebeat.com/2014/01/04/retail-versus-e-tail-heres-who-won-the-2013-shopping-season/
http://venturebeat.com/2014/01/04/retail-versus-e-tail-heres-who-won-the-2013-shopping-season/#commentsSun, 05 Jan 2014 02:00:51 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=879046While Walmart and Target still held their own and experienced huge surges around Black Friday and Christmas Eve, the leader of the pack turned out to be -- drum roll! -- Amazon.com.
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]]>1Retail versus e-tail: Here's who won the 2013 shopping seasonTarget breach: Millions of credit cards hit black markets (report)http://venturebeat.com/2013/12/20/target-breach-millions-of-credit-cards-hit-black-markets-report/
http://venturebeat.com/2013/12/20/target-breach-millions-of-credit-cards-hit-black-markets-report/#commentsFri, 20 Dec 2013 20:23:03 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=875291VentureBeat CEO Matt Marshall had to cancel his credit card this week. But he's not the only one: Millions of cards used at Target have reportedly appeared on underground "card shops" in recent weeks.
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VentureBeat CEO Matt Marshall had to cancel his credit card this week.

Marshall started seeing suspicious charges pop up on his card statements — ironically, from a Calif.-based Target shop. But he’s not the only one: Millions of cards used at Target have appeared on underground “card shops” in recent weeks, according to KrebsOnSecurity, the blog that originally reported the Target breach story.

They’re selling in batches of up to one million cards, with each card going for anywhere from $20 to $100. Crooks can pay for them using virtual currencies like Bitcoin and Litecoin, as well as through wire transfers via Western Union and MoneyGram.

The thieves not only gained access to credit card numbers, but also three-digit CVV security codes, which merchants aren’t supposed to store — demonstrating a blatant disregard for data security best practices (not to mention compliance requirements) on Target’s part. Scam artists can use that information to make purchases at retail stores. If the intruders also gained access to the PINs for those cards, crooks could theoretically use cloned cards to withdraw cash from a victim’s bank account directly from ATMs.

Reached for comment, Bank of America and JPMorganChase representatives provided similar statements to VentureBeat: They proactively monitor customers’ accounts for fraud and will reach out if they see suspicious activity, and customers aren’t liable for any fraudulent use of their cards. Bank of America specifically promised to reissue the cards if necessary.

The banks aren’t thrilled at the prospect of having to reissue thousands or potentially millions of cards. Not only does the process cost around $3 to $5 per card, but it also means lost revenue during the hottest shopping season of the year.

While the precise scope of the Target intrusion is still a bit hazy, it’s undoubtedly one of the largest retail security breaches to date.

“I do not envy anyone that has to respond to a breach like this,” said David Kidd, director of quality assurance and compliance at Peak 10, a provider of cloud data solutions. “Going forward this will be a cautionary tale and, I hope, a learning experience for information security professionals.

“The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard was intended to protect businesses, consumers, and card issuers from exactly this type of information security breach — and compliance is a critical component of prevention, whether it is internally managed or through a data solutions provider.”

As a result of the breach, Target could face fines from major credit card brands as well as a loss in consumer trust.

In 2007, retailer TJX’s systems were also compromised by hackers. The crooks tapped into the store’s wireless networks to access and steal data from its Massachusetts headquarters, taking off with information from more than 45 million credit and debit cards. TJX faced fines of more than $40 million as a result of the incident.

]]>0Target breach: Millions of credit cards hit black markets (report)Target confirms massive data breach affecting 40M credit and debit cardshttp://venturebeat.com/2013/12/19/target-confirms-massive-data-breach-affecting-40m-credit-and-debit-cards/
http://venturebeat.com/2013/12/19/target-confirms-massive-data-breach-affecting-40m-credit-and-debit-cards/#commentsThu, 19 Dec 2013 14:01:54 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=874538If you’ve shopped at a Target store in the past few weeks, get ready to keep a close eye on your monthly payment card statements. Target confirmed today that hackers gained access to data from more than 40 million credit and debit cards used in its stores between November 27 and December 15. While the […]
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If you’ve shopped at a Target store in the past few weeks, get ready to keep a close eye on your monthly payment card statements.

Target confirmed today that hackers gained access to data from more than 40 million credit and debit cards used in its stores between November 27 and December 15. While the issue has been resolved, Target recommends that all shoppers who visited its stores during that period to keep a close eye on their card activity.

It’s unclear if the breach also affected online shoppers, but at this point that doesn’t seem likely. Target has around 1,800 stores across the U.S., all of which were affected by the attack.

Target says it contacted authorities once it became aware of the breach, and it’s now working with law enforcement agencies and financial companies. The breach appears clearly coordinated to take advantage of Black Friday weekend and the influx of holiday shoppers in December. While Target isn’t offering up any additional details about the attack, the huge payload and surprisingly lengthy time frame of the attack suggests a possible inside job.

Security reporter Brian Krebs, who broke the story before Target’s official announcement, is hearing that the thieves snagged magnetic stripe data from the cards, which would allow them to recreate credit and debit cards.

“This is a breach that should’ve never happened,” Forrester vice president and principal analyst John Kindervag said in a statement today.”The fact that three-digit CVV security codes were compromised shows they were being stored. Storing CVV codes has long been banned by the card brands and the PCI SSC. Without knowing the exact breach vector it’s hard to say exactly what happened, but clearly by exposing CVV information target has demonstrated a blatant disregard for PCI DSS compliance regulations as well as card security best practices.”

Expect to hear plenty more about this story over the coming weeks. In a time when shoppers are already leaning towards online shopping for convenience and cheaper prices, weak security efforts could push consumers even farther away from retail stores. In 2007, T.J.Maxx owner TJX was also hit by a data breach affecting 45.6 million cards used in its stores.

Ecommerce is so yesterday. Shopify’s legendarily simple online platform took in more cash for its 80,000 merchants than Zappos, WalMart, Target, and Best Buy on Cyber Monday 2013, but that’s just a small piece of what the company is doing.

“There are glimpses of things in the market today that provide a foreshadowing of the future of retail,” Shopify’s chief platform officer Harley Finkelstein told me today. “But no one ties it all together.”

That’s why Square is just “OK” in Finkelstein’s view, and eBay has only part of the solution, and PayPal’s products for retailers miss the mark, as do pretty much all the other contenders. They’re all pieces of the puzzle, but the problem is that merchants have to fit them together.

Finkelstein’s plan is to ensure they don’t have to.

The cash behind Shopify

Part of the investment into Ottawa-based Shopify, and therefore part of the story behind Shopify, comes from government sources.

The Ontario government put $90 million into the Ontario Venture Capital Fund in 2008, which didn’t invest directly in companies but invested in Canadian VCs: Georgian Partners, OMERS Ventures, and more. Those VCs then, of course, invested in Shopify and other startups.

That seed investment seems pretty smart in retrospect: Through that $90 million, John Marshall of the Ontario Capital Growth Foundation told me, the government leveraged $820 million in private equity.

“Merchants need to be able to sell anything, anywhere, anytime,” he says, referring to online sales, offline revenue, mobile sales, social commerce, and any other means of exchanging products and cash. “We want to building one thing that works for everything: one central merchant dashboard, one set of inventory, one set of financial data … no matter what channel you use it all goes back to your dashboard.”

“Shopify has done an amazing job of scaling,” Justin Lafayette, one of Shopify’s investors, says. “They’re entering a new phase of leadership.”

In fact, Lafayette says, the company has been so “capital efficient” and profitable that it has “consumed very little if any” of its previous rounds of financing. He should know — he’s a principal at Georgian Partners, which participated in both Shopify’s B and recent C rounds.

Which makes you wonder what the company needs $100 million for — a question that Finkelstein was coy in answering.

“Over the past two years we’ve made two acquisitions,” he says. “Our M&A strategy is opportunistic … there could be some acquisitions in the future.”

It doesn’t seem likely, however.

Shopify’s two previous acquisitions were both acqui-hires that brought smart agency people into the business for their mobile and marketing expertise. Any future acquisition would have to be easily integrated into Shopify’s emerging commerce platform, given the company’s holistic mindset.

It’s more likely that the company will continue building out its solution itself. But competitors are looming.

As Shopify emerges from the “ecommerce platform” label and becomes an all-commerce company, its competitors expand from StorEnvy and BigCommerce and Magento to existing POS companies and inventory management companies and other backend providers. Not to mention hot startups like Square, and new/old competitors like PayPal, or nightmare competitors like Google, if it ever gets Google Wallet and Google Payments out of hobby mode.

But Finkelstein has a plan for that.

“We’ve done a really good job of democratizing online retail over the last eight years, giving the tools only big businesses once had to small businesses at a price point they could handle,” he told me. “Just like ecommerce, what if we take the same tools that only the largest big-box retailers have and give them to small businesses at a price they can handle — and make them much better?”

And the company’s integrated vision is another differentiator, he says.

“There’s a lot of companies doing one thing,” he says. “But no one ties it all together: payments, inventory, records, channels … in one central merchant dashboard.”

It’s an ambitious vision, and one that relies on the future of retail not just being integrated, but also staying — at least partially — bricks and mortar.

If you’d like to catch a glimpse of the future of retail shopping today, just head to an Apple store with an iOS 7 device.

Apple today is kicking off its iBeacon technology across its 254 U.S. retail stores, the Associated Press reports. iBeacon uses low-power Bluetooth to determine your location indoors and send you information or offers relevant to that location. For example, if you’re standing in front of an Apple Store’s iPhone display, you could get a message asking you to upgrade your iPhone (along with details on your upgrade status), the AP reports.

The technology was announced earlier this year, and Apple is partnering with other retailers to bring iBeacon to their stores as well.

You’ll need an iOS 7 device with Bluetooth 4.0 to take advantage of iBeacon’s tracking (which includes the iPhone 4S and later devices, as well as the third-generation iPad), and you’ll need the Apple Store app installed. Upon first entering one of Apple’s stores, you’ll be asked if you want Apple to track your location and send you notifications through its app. The AP notes you’ll have to say yes to both questions to enable iBeacon.

Today’s launch is just a glimpse at what iBeacon is capable of. Major League Baseball has also said it will use the technology across ballparks, and Macy’s has said that it’s testing iBeacon as well. Apple isn’t the first company to step into location tracking — Shopkick offers stores a device that can send alerts to shoppers through its app — but it’s poised to be the first to make consumers widely aware of it.

As with any tracking technology, there are also major privacy considerations (Apple says it doesn’t store information about customers). But, just as consumers readily accepted GPS tracking in their phones, there’s a good chance shoppers won’t mind trading some of their privacy for convenience.

The iBeacon transmitters are cheap devices that retailers can spread throughout their stores. The technology allows for iPhones and iPads to also serve as transmitters. Apple has set up around 20 transmitters at its flagship Fifth Avenue store in NYC, which includes some iOS devices, the AP reports.

Though Apple doesn’t offer an Apple Store app for Android, it’s breaking with its usually closed tradition by making the iBeacon protocol compatible with Android 4.3 devices equipped with Bluetooth 4.0. That means other firms that want to use iBeacon will actually be able to track both their iOS and Android customers.

]]>2Apple launches iBeacon shopper location tracking across its U.S. stores todayThanksgiving by the numbers: Facebook, Twitter data spots the hottest retailershttp://venturebeat.com/2013/11/29/thanksgiving-by-the-numbers-facebook-twitter-data-spots-the-hottest-retailers/
http://venturebeat.com/2013/11/29/thanksgiving-by-the-numbers-facebook-twitter-data-spots-the-hottest-retailers/#commentsFri, 29 Nov 2013 22:30:44 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=866642One retailer got way more of its social content shared than others leading up to Black Friday. But on this fateful day, that retailer isn't where people are actually shopping, according to some data.
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Don’t wait for the pundits to tell you what happened this Black Friday. And don’t make generalizations based on a TV news reporter’s interviews with two random people in line at the local Walmart. If you’re smart — and you are, I know it — you’ll want to look at the data.

Twitter and Facebook posts represent data worth mining for Black Friday thoughts. And on those sites, Walmart easily beat out other major retailers in terms of “social content amplified by shoppers” from Nov. 1 to Nov. 24, according to data from Shareablee, which describes itself a “social business intelligence platform.” Walmart picked up almost 20 percent of the “share of social word of mouth,” while Amazon.com came in No. 2 with 8 percent.

But that data is static — and out of date by now. IBM is tracking online sales on Black Friday, and it’s found that, as of 9 a.m. Pacific today, online sales were up more than 7 percent compared with that day last year. The average order this time around: $142.33.

Editor’s note: Our upcoming DataBeat/Data Science Summit, Dec. 4-Dec. 5 in Redwood City, will focus on the most compelling opportunities for businesses in the area of big data analytics and data science. There are just a few seats left, so be sure to register today!

Mobile traffic for Black Friday is up a bit year over year, at 36 percent of all online traffic. Tablet users were spending more than smartphone users ($137.96 to 119.21, respectively).

Break out mobile sales — at 21.5 percent of all online sales — and you’ll see iOS devices doing most of the deals, with 17.5 percent, and the rest coming from Android devices.

That might mean Android developers could do a better job of designing applications that entice people to buy things. Then again, it could suggest Android owners tend to spend less than their iOS counterparts, plain and simple.

Finally, you could get an up-to-date idea of what’s happening on the ground from a nifty dashboard from the retail marketing agency TPN. Based on polls of around 2,000 people outside big-box stores in a few cities in the United States, the dashboard shows what those people are saying in real time. It updates every minute.

More respondents were shopping at Macy’s rather than at Target, Best Buy, Walmart, or GameStop, in that order, as of this morning.

Above: Stores at which respondents were shopping.

Before going shopping, 27 percent of respondents said they’d used applications, while 25 percent did so while shopping. Retailers’ applications were more popular than applications for rewards, coupons, lists, and price comparisons, the respondents said.

More often than not, the respondents who found and bought what they’d wanted were getting a great Black Friday deal, they reported.

It’s the first time TPN released its dashboard, so it’s hard to say how the results compare with previous years. And the sample size could be larger, and input could stream in from more cities. Still, displaying survey responses as they’re recorded is a nice way for people to keep score at home, and the data could be useful for companies to promote their deals and applications more.

All of this data, while entertaining to see while we feast on Thanksgiving leftovers, is still preliminary. We’re only seeing the Black Friday shopping insanity manifesting itself in tweets, poll responses, and online sales for part of the day.

More definitive information should come in the form of public companies’ quarterly earnings statements. For now, this is some of the best information we’ve got. It’s certainly more informative than what friends had to say at the dining room table last night.

]]>0Thanksgiving by the numbers: Facebook, Twitter data spots the hottest retailersStartup Shootout: Which e-commerce startups perform best on mobile?http://venturebeat.com/2013/11/23/startup-shootout-which-e-commerce-startups-perform-best-on-mobile/
http://venturebeat.com/2013/11/23/startup-shootout-which-e-commerce-startups-perform-best-on-mobile/#commentsSat, 23 Nov 2013 22:07:15 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=864697Guest:Now is a perfect time to look at how the online retailers on the Keynote Startup Shootout Index are performing, and see if they are ready for the holiday rush.
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Editor’s note:Keynote Systems’ Startup Shootout Index provides some insight into the three-screen challenge now facing anyone with a web presence. It’s the first website performance index to measure load times and completion percentages on desktops, smartphones, and tablets simultaneously. VentureBeat is Keynote’s exclusive media partner, so we’ll be bringing you a fresh set of data from Keynote every month. Check out previous Startup Shootout results.

The holidays are upon us. Now is a perfect time to look at how the online retailers on the Keynote Startup Shootout Index are performing, and see if they are ready for the holiday rush.

We track a number of the leading, startup retailers – Fab.com, Gilt Group, Ideeli, Living Social, One Kings Lane, RueLaLa and Trunk Club. We particularly wanted to look at their performance on smartphones.

RueLaLa was the clear winner, with its performance ahead of the competition across every device.

One Kings Lane does not fare so well, though there may be a good reason for the slower times to a complete page load.

For fast load times, we always recommend limiting what loads “above the fold” so that the user sees content quickly, even if other content “below the fold” continues to load.

But this does raise an important design challenge. Some website owners have customers who would rather scroll down one page rather than click on links. In the case of One Kings Lane, this looks to be the compromise they make.

While the complete page load (often described as “end-to-end” page load time) takes a long time, visitors to the One Kings Lane mobile home page do see the content above the fold very quickly.

But RueLaLa definitely has the fastest “end-to-end” page load times on smartphone browsers. Even on the impressive RueLaLa site, we see 38 new requests being made as the site loads.

This is more than we would recommend.

Keynote suggests no more than 20 requests for optimum speed, which is considered to be a three second or under load time. In addition to the large number of requests, it takes RueLaLa about two seconds to load the base content for its home page, with the corporate image being one of the first items to load.

So, not only is RueLaLa loading too much content, but the core HTML file for the page is taking longer than it should. Even though RueLaLa is the leader for retail sites in the Startup Shootout Index, these are areas it could work on to improve.

Meanwhile, Ideeli takes a tortuous 26 seconds to load its complete home page on the iPhone. It’s loading a large amount of content, and the content that loads early is not useful for initial render of the page. In fact, typically nothing will appear on the browser screen by the three second mark.

Another concern with the Ideeli home page is the large number of domains being used, causing big delays with domain name resolutions. We actually counted 36 separate domains used on the page. For example, we see www.ideeli.com, 0.icdn.ideeli.com, 1.icdn.ideeli.com, 3.icdn.ideeli.com, 0-dam.ideeli.com, 2-dam.ideeli.com, etc.

Large numbers of domain names are less of a concern on the desktop, but on a smartphone, across a less robust network, it quickly causes problems. If each new domain introduces a delay for the DNS resolution request (typically between one-tenth and one-quarter of a second) then multiply that by 36 and you start to see the problem. Extra DNS lookup easily adds up to critical seconds of extra wait time for customers trying to visit the site.

On the Ideeli.com home page, the browser may do a DNS lookup for as many as one out of every four assets on the page. Many of these are for third-party tags like Facebook tags or Google Analytics, but many are for Ideeli’s own domains or for mobify.com domains (a mobile technology platform that the Ideeli mobile site is built upon). Having to look up multiple domains plus multiple third party tags is really impacting performance.

In contrast, over at RueLaLa we see a number of third-party tags but just one domain from the core site itself. RueLaLa also loads a considerably smaller number of assets – almost a quarter as many as Ideeli.

Domain Sharding – Your Time Has Passed

And one final thought. The divergent experiences we see between RueLaLa and Ideeli bring up another interesting technique that affects performance.

Not so long ago, a web site performance trick called “domain sharding” was popular.

Browsers like Internet Explorer 6 and 7 had limitations that restricted their ability to fetch only two requests from any given domain in parallel at one time. In order to get more requests running in parallel, developers would intentionally use multiple domains, such as image1.example.org, image 2.example.org, and image3.example.org instead of using a single domain called image.example.org.

Hence the term, domain sharding.

Today that limit has been removed with popular browsers now able to fetch six and sometimes even 12 parallel connections at a time to any web server. Domain sharding might still benefit some pages in some conditions, but for mobile sites, the time spent making DNS lookups and making new server connections is often slower than the benefit derived from extra parallelism in the downloads.

If your mobile site is still using domain sharding, it’s time to revisit that decision and consider a different approach.

Keynote tests the sites in the index hourly and around the clock from four locations over the three largest U.S. wireless networks, simulating visitors using three different devices. Data is collected from multiple locations and then aggregated to provide an overall monthly average in terms of both performance and availability.

American Giant, the clothing maker that is winning the hearts of the Internet generation, just raised $3.6 million of a $2.5 million round.

We reached out to the company for comment on the funding after spotting the filing with the Securities and Exchanges Committee. According to a spokesperson, the company raised over $1 million more than expected.

San Francisco-based American Giant got its big break when Slate columnist Farhad Manjoo called its sweatshirt the “greatest ever.” Or as he would later put it, after the sweatshirt sold out,” I turned down the lights, put on some Barry White, and, over the course of around 2,000 gyrating words, unspooled my sweet, tender love for the company and its clothes.”

In the wake of all the press attention, orders flooded in for the hoodie. The young company could barely keep up with the demand. Chief executive Bayard Winthrop reported that everything was gone in less than 36 hours.

American Giant now sells a line of basic apparel, like slouchy zip hoodies and super soft tees. It has capitalized on its overnight success by marketing its products directly to consumers. It has hacked the traditional supply chain by eliminating the need for physical stores.

Since its 2012 debut, the brand has been growing quickly and is tapping into the “Made in America” nostalgia. All its apparel is manufactured at factories in the United States.

American Giant has already raised $5 million in funding in 2011, led by Donald Kendall, the former chairman and CEO of Pepsi Co. Kendall is listed on the SEC filing alongside Winthrop, which suggests that he has opted to lead this current round.

]]>0American Giant, maker of the ‘world’s greatest sweatshirt,’ raises $3.6MTOMS launches online retail marketplace to give back more than shoeshttp://venturebeat.com/2013/11/05/toms-launches-online-retail-marketplace-to-give-back-more-than-shoes/
http://venturebeat.com/2013/11/05/toms-launches-online-retail-marketplace-to-give-back-more-than-shoes/#commentsTue, 05 Nov 2013 17:59:23 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=855573The TOMS marketplace features a curated selection of brands and products that have a social mission behind them.
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“When we started seven years ago, we basically created the one-for-one model,” said founder Blake Mycoskie in an interview with VentureBeat. “People thought it was stupid and crazy, but since then we have sold 10 million shoes and seen social entrepreneurship growing as a movement. But there is still no centralized place for consumers to shop for products with purpose behind them.”

TOMS one-for-one model means that for every pair of shoes sold, one is donated to children in need in the developing world. The company also launched an eyewear line and provides prescription glasses, medical treatment, and/or sight-saving surgery with each purchase.

The cause-driven approach to retail has inspired scores of other entrepreneurs to put a social mission at the core of their business. Mycoskie published a book titled “Start Something That Matters” in 2011. He said that afterwards, companies and their founders began reaching out to him to say they were inspired by TOMS’ model.

“For so long, we were forced to believe that the only way to make the world a better place was through charity and traditional non profits,” Mycoskie said. “Businesses can play a role in creating more social good, and people want to help. It is exciting for them to make purchasing decisions with more purpose.”

The TOMS team wanted to help these fellow social entrepreneurs reach consumers and sell their products, and decided to set up a platform where all these products, stories, causes, and founders could be featured in one place.

TOMS marketplace currently sells over 200 products from 30 carefully-chosen brands. Not all operate a one-to-one model, but all are deemed socially conscious by TOMS “giving team” and have a clear mission.

Consumers can search the marketplace by specific products they are looking for or by cause or geographical region. Products include accessories, apparel, home goods, tech, and toys. Causes include children, education, health, job creation, nutrition, and water.

“I don’t think social entrepreneurship is a fad,”Mycoskie said. “Year after year, we are seeing businesses incorporate giving in an authentic way, and this is largely driven by technology. It allows us to be more connected as a global community and more aware of issues going on around the world. We are more optimistic than our parents before us, we feel we can solve the world’s problems.”

If a customer is purchasing TOMS shoes, chances are they are interested in products with a similar ethos as well. The marketplace also gives smaller brands greater exposure and a stronger marketing and distribution channel.

It is under the TOMS umbrella, but treated as a separate company. A separate team was allocated/hired to design and build the marketplace and source items for it.

“This is not just a derivative of TOMS, it has its own identity,” Mycoskie said. “It looks different, it feels different, and it is a totally new business model. But since we are a bigger company, we can help smaller brands offer superior customer service and same-day shipping. Plus we are uniquely positioned to authenticate and put our stamp of approval on these items.”